How to Sound Smart and Memorable, Anytime

0:00From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

0:22Let's say that you're in a meeting. Let's say it's a big meeting, an important meeting, lots of important people there. And then somebody says, out of nowhere, hey, you, can you stand up and give a five-minute presentation on this or that thing, or a 10 or a 20 minute presentation? Can you just talk intelligently to this group for a while? Could you do that? Would you feel confident doing that? Or would you feel like a rambling mess? I think most people would feel like a rambling mess, but they don't have to because there are things that you can do to prepare for exactly that moment. And it doesn't mean memorizing every single thing you know.

1:03Instead, it means thinking about talking. in a totally different way. If you think about it, most of our communication happens spontaneously. Yet if we've ever spent any time working on our communication, it has likely been focused on planned presenting, pitching, running a meeting. But most of what we do is answer questions, give feedback, fix the mistakes we've made, small talk. So there's this need to help people speak better in the moment. This is someone who should know and who is talking off the top of his head right now. His name is Matt. My name is Matt Abrahams. I am a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

1:41I also am the host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast and author of two books, Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, and my new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. Think Faster, Talk Smarter just came out and we ran an excerpt of it in the new issue of Entrepreneur Magazine because I really loved this chapter that he wrote in the book about the very foundational skill that you need in order to speak freely, spontaneously. Because as it turns out, there are things that you can do to prepare for that moment, no matter what that moment looks like. And it sounds ironic and strange that we're talking about spontaneity, yet we're also talking about structure.

2:24But the hidden secret of effective speaking in the moment is structures. And what are those structures? Well, do not worry because Matt has a whole bunch of them. And we're going to go through them, talk about why they're important, talk about how to implement them, talk about why they work, and how you can become a better speaker no matter the circumstance. It is all about structure coming up on this very structured episode of Problem Solvers. I'm Charlotte Alter, and this is Person of the Week, a new show from Time about the people who shape our world and the forces that shape them. As a senior correspondent for Time, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that to understand our world, you need to understand the people who influence it.

3:08So this summer, I'll be having more conversations with the humans behind the headlines, a lot more, and I'm bringing them to you firsthand. Are you ready to meet Time's Person of the Week? Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back talking with Matt Abrahams, lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and author of the new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter. And we're talking about structure and the importance of it and how to use it. So, well, how do we structure this one? We take it from the very top. So to me, structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas.

3:47Many of us, when we speak, we don't have structure. We ramble or we provide a list or bullet points of information. And that's not the way our brains are designed to take in information. It doesn't desire it at all either. So by providing information packaged in a way that we can process more effectively, it helps. And structure is something that's all around us. You know, we enjoy jazz music. We enjoy watching people do improvisational comedy. We love watching children play. And all of that has a structure behind it. Jazz musicians don't just play random notes. They follow chord progressions and ideas that give them the way of jamming together.

4:28Improvisers don't just go out there and do anything crazy. There's a set of rules they follow. Everybody or many people are familiar with the rule, yes and, or do what's needed. And if you know everybody's playing by those same rules, you have a structure to how things unfold. For my book, I interviewed a woman who designs playgrounds. And I had heard of a study that had said that kids actually play better. That is, they enjoy the play. They're more creative in their play when there's an actual play structure versus when there's nothing. And that was counterintuitive to me because I always thought, well, if there's nothing, they'll just make stuff up.

5:00But in fact, having some structure to ground the play in helps them be more effective at it. And the same is true in our communication. So when I read that, it put words and ideas to something that I had been thinking about for myself. People tell me, and I do a lot of speaking, I travel around and give talks and then do Q &As, but also I just talk to a lot of people. And people tell me, oh, you're such a, you're a good storyteller. Oh, you know, you really like, you hold attention. And I was thinking, what am I doing so that I am accomplishing that? Because people didn't always tell that to me.

5:37I used to be very rambly. And the best that I had come up with is, oh, well, you know, by having a career as a writer, I've just written a lot of stories and I must have started to figure out how to speak in a way in which I write. Because when you write, you have to have a structure to it. Most people don't realize, but every magazine article that you've ever read is structured basically exactly the same way. It opens up with some kind of point or it drops you into some anecdote, and then it pulls back. It gives you what's called the nut graph, and it kind of establishes what you're talking about and what's to come.

6:10And then it starts walking you towards what has just been promised so that it gets delivered upon. And I realized, I think I'm just speaking like I'm writing because I learned how to structure my writing. And then to read from you that this is an actual strategy that anybody can pick up because there are different kinds of structures that you can think of, different bones that you can put underneath the words, was kind of revelatory. I love that you are connecting writing with speaking because there are so many parallels for sure. And that's great. And I am certain that what makes you a good speaker is what makes you a good writer.

6:50The notion of first, how to structure content, and then two, how to make it relevant and engaging for the audience. Many of us, when we write, when we speak, We just think about getting our information out and we don't think about how do we construct that information in a way that's relevant and important for the audience, which means they're more likely to pay attention, engage and remember. And that is exactly the problem that I see with a lot of rookie writers, which is that they'll file something that will go on for 500 words before it ever gets to the point. And therefore, I don't know what it is you're trying to tell me.

7:23And I realized through that, that, oh, my gosh, I need to know and therefore other people need to know pretty upfront what they're getting themselves into. When somebody starts speaking or when somebody reads something that's written, they need some signal of what the purpose of this is, what the value of this is, and what's to come. So for those of us who are not professional writers, what would you advise that people begin thinking about when they think about building structure into how they're talking? Excellent question. And I'm going to start a couple steps before the actual structure. So first and foremost, we need to think about who we're talking to, who we're writing for, and what's important for them.

8:00So we have to do some reconnaissance, reflection, and research into who the audience is, what matters for them. And once we have an answer to that, I believe we need to set up a goal. To me, a goal helps prioritize what it is you're trying to say. And a goal has three parts, information, emotion, and action. What do you want the audience to know based on what you know about them? How do you want them to feel? A lot of us don't think about the feeling component, yet research in neuroscience has taught us that emotion gets into our brains faster, stays longer, and motivates more memory and behavior.

8:33So do I want you excited or concerned, or do I want you validated or empowered, feeling confident? Whatever those emotions are, we need to think about them. And then finally, is there an action? Much of communication, not all, has some action orientation to it. So we need to think about what do we want them to know, feel, and do. Once we have that information, we can then think about what's the best way to package up what I want to say. And there are many structures, as you alluded to. If you've ever tried to pitch or persuade or influence people, you've probably leveraged the problem-solution-benefit structure.

9:07Here's the problem we're trying to solve. Here's how we can solve it. And then here's the benefit of doing so. Most pitches, Most advertisements follow that way. In fact, you can listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech and hear a problem-solution-benefit structure to that. So these are structures that underlie a lot of communication. My favorite structure, Jason, is one that's three simple questions. What? So what? Now what? You can do so much with this structure. What is your idea, your belief, your product, your service? So what is, why is it important to the audience you're speaking to?

9:44And now what is, what would you like them to do next? Maybe try it out or sign on the bottom line or ask me some questions. So if you ask me for feedback, I could give you my feedback. What is my feedback? So what is why it's important? And now what is what I'd like you to do next? So I might say, hey, the next time we're in a meeting, I'd like for you to slow down. You spoke really quickly when you talked about the implementation plan. That's the what. When you speak quickly, people don't think you know the topic as deeply as you should or that you're nervous. Then the now what would be, I'd love for you to slow down and use these two in-depth examples the next time you communicate.

10:18So again, using what, so what, now what helps me package the information to make it easier for you to digest. How would you suggest that people actually start to put this into practice? Because there is a list that you have written of structures. We'll have them in Entrepreneur Magazine when we run the excerpt from your book. I'm looking at some of them right now, some of which you just said. Problem, solution, benefit. Point, reason, example, point. Comparison, contrast, conclusion. So this is interesting. You can read this and you can say, oh, I totally understand that. And then you can even listen to other people talk and say, ah, I see what they're doing.

10:55But that is quite different from actually executing it for yourself, particularly on the fly. So what should people do? Excellent question. Yeah. So this is where the irony of I talked about structure to be spontaneous. You also have to practice to be spontaneous. And the analogy I use is playing sports. Most people listening in have probably played a sport at some point. And the way they got better was practice. So if you're a soccer player or a basketball player, you dribble around cones and you do that a lot. And then when you're in the game, you do dribbling as well. But the cones are other people's.

11:26What helps you be better at dribbling around other people is the fact you dribbled around cones. So I encourage people to pick a structure, any of those structures you'd listed or more. There are many more. I have some others in the book as well. And practice them. And the first way to practice is to notice them and then to challenge yourself about them. Let's stick with what, so what, now what, the one I mentioned a few minutes ago. Listen to any podcast you like, read an article that you like, and at some point, stop and ask yourself, what's the article about? Why is it important to me? What value am I taking from it?

11:58And then what can I do with this information? All I'm doing is asking myself what, so what, and now what? And by drilling myself into being able to listen for that structure and then apply that structure for myself, it then becomes easier to use in the moment when I need to be the one who's doing the communication. So it's one thing to know something. It's another thing to practice with it. And by practicing with it, you then become better at it. I'll give you another example. Most organizations have frequently asked questions as part of their training or as part of their resources. is take one of the structures in my book and write out your frequently asked questions, the answers to those questions in one of the structures.

12:37The act of doing that writing out gets you more used to the structure. So when you actually have to use it, you've already practiced it. You know what's so interesting about structure? Once you hear it, you start to see it everywhere. One of the most revelatory things that somebody told me about podcasting was that podcasting, unlike writing, requires more of what the person had called signposting. And what they were basically saying was, when you're listening to a podcast, unlike a piece of writing where if you get a little lost or your mind starts to wander, you can just look upwards at what you had just read and kind of get yourself back on track.

13:21But podcasting, you can't do that because it's just kind of flowing through your ears. it's hard to rewind. And so good podcasts, particularly good narrative podcasts where people are working off of scripts, have a lot of signposting, which is to say that they are regularly saying, this is what we're going to talk about next. Okay, we just talked about that. Now here's what we're going to talk about next. Okay, now we just talked about that. And once somebody said that to me, I heard it everywhere. And I also started to realize this is very useful when I'm speaking to people, because also people's minds might wander.

13:55And if I'm going on for too long, and it's not clear where I'm going, it becomes very intolerable. But if I'm going on for a while, and people feel like they are working with me, they are progressing towards something, then it feels like I'm a guide on a journey. And I'm curious, because that's not really a structure so much as it is a maybe structural element. But how mindful you think people should be or how much they're maybe not being mindful enough as they're speaking about constantly orienting the audience about where they're going and what the audience should expect. Maybe that's the very point of the structure that you're talking about at a kind of elemental level.

14:33What do you think? So I think you've hit on something that's really, really important. For the book, I interviewed an editor for the Dummies series. Are you familiar with the Dummies series? Yeah, it's whatever. Anything for dummies. Tree planting for dummies, driving for dummies. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And one of the things that she said that I thought was fascinating is one of the guiding principles for what they do is they want to make what they call wayfinding really easy for their readers. And I think that's a really interesting thing to think about in communication in general.

15:03We need to help the people we communicate find their way through our material. Now, in their books, they have lots of different ways. You can skip ahead, you can go back, all of that. But in our linear communication where you can't hyperlink and jump around, we still have to help people. And you stole my thunder when you said a guide, because I learned this when I was an undergraduate in university. I was desperate for money. I needed to find the highest paying job I could. And it ended up being a tour guide. So I was a tour guide on my college campus. And I learned in that, that the single most important thing you can do to prevent your tour group from getting bored or lost is to provide structure and to connect those points.

15:42So part of what structure does is it sets expectations. So as a good tour guide, I don't just say, hi, let's go. I say, today we're going to do this and that. We're not going to do that. So everybody's prepared. Because when you're prepared, you can focus. If you don't know where you're going, then you get very nervous and agitated and you're not able to pay attention. So structure does that. The other thing structure does is it connects those points, as you alluded to. It allows you to bridge between where you were to where you're going. As a tour guide, I will tell you firsthand, when you lose, people literally lose them.

16:13They just wander off. is when you move from one place to the next. And the same thing happens when you write and when you speak. So those bridges, those transitions you're talking about are absolutely critical and structure helps you with those transitions. So if I'm using problem solution benefit, I can transition easily. I can say, now that we understand the problem, how can we solve it, right? That's a beautiful transition that connects the points together. So I think this notion of wayfinding and bridging your audience in writing and speaking makes a big, big difference. I think the two most important skills for podcasters as a podcaster myself who is still learning is the ability to wayfind, to bridge and connect ideas.

16:53And the other is to paraphrase, to be able to connect what the person just said to the point they were trying to make or you were trying to make. If you can do those two things, I think you're well on your way to being a good podcaster. That last part of what you just said there reminded me of something that I thought a lot about as I was once a small town newspaper reporter who had to drive a lot and listen to a lot of NPR. And I would listen to these midday talk shows, but NPR versions of talk shows. So everyone's very civil. And you'd have the host and then you'd have some guests and then they would have callers.

17:30And they screen callers, but you never know what's gonna happen when somebody gets on the air. And so they get on the air and the caller is always a little rambly and their question is always a little complicated. And I was always amazed by the host's ability to the second that the caller is done speaking or cutting them off if they're going on too long, they would say, that's a really great point. Matt, Susie here is wondering about how, and then they would repackage the question into something that was so much more useful than the person themselves had actually said. And it really facilitated the conversation because it, one, kept it focused, but two, it also was a great signpost for the listener who might have gotten confused by what that listener, what that caller just said by saying, here's what we're talking about next.

18:16This is how we're going to continue the conversation. And it just gave me this great appreciation for the person whose job it was to make sure everyone was oriented and feeling satisfied. That's exactly right. And that's what structure and paraphrasing will do for you. And I would argue that those hosts you're talking about, we're likely putting that information into a structure that was easy for everybody or easier for everybody to understand. You're exactly right. And the ability to listen so you can paraphrase is hard. That's why there's a whole chapter in the book about listening. You can miss little things that make a big difference if you don't listen well.

18:54And then in a spontaneous moment, you can respond inappropriately. I'll give you an example. Let's say you and I come out of a meeting and you say, hey, Matt, what do you think about how that meeting went? And I immediately say, oh, Jason wants feedback. Well, Jason, you did this well. You sucked at that. That was a problem. But had I listened really carefully, I might have noticed that you came out the back door of the meeting room, not the front door. You asked me with a little less affect than normally. You were looking out the window as you asked for feedback. What I might have realized is your request for feedback was really a request for support.

19:25And Me layering on all the things that went wrong is exactly the opposite of what you needed. So we have to listen well to paraphrase, but also just to orient our responses in a way that's appropriate. Is there something that you do in your head as you're trying to do those two things at once? Yeah. So as I'm listening, first, I really try to focus. And I am constantly saying to myself, what's the bottom line here and what's needed in the moment? So as I'm listening, those are the two things that are focusing what I am listening for. So what's the bottom line? So that's your content. And then what's needed?

19:59And needed allows me to think about connection, affiliation, emotion. So as I'm listening, those two things are focusing my listening. So I'm listening much more than just to learn from you. I'm listening to understand what's needed in the moment. Matt, this has been really useful. How can people either learn more about you or get Think Faster, Talk Smarter? Well, thank you, Jason. I've really enjoyed the conversation myself. You brought up some really important points. So please check out mattabrahams.com. You can get a bunch of information and resources that I provide, including information about the book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, and the podcast I host, Think Fast, Talk Smart.

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